Rep. Ben Carpenter, R-Nikiski, endorsed in a Monday email from his State Senate election campaign the contentious conservative policy proposal “Project 2025,” saying that its goals reflect “the correct role of a limited government.” He pledged to further those goals if elected as a senator.
“Project 2025 — What’s not to like?” the subject line reads.
Carpenter has served in the Alaska House of Representatives since 2018, sitting for House District 8 and representing the northern Kenai Peninsula including Nikiski, Sterling and Cooper Landing. Rather than seek reelection to the House this year, he’s challenging Sen. Jesse Bjorkman, R-Nikiski, for the State Senate District D seat.
Carpenter said Friday that while the email says “I believe the goals of Project 2025 reflect the correct goal of a limited government,” and closes “As your senator, I will work hard to further them in Alaska!,” he is not focused on implementing the policies of Project 2025 if elected to the Senate. Rather, he said that sharing Project 2025 is about communicating his vision by connecting his ideas directly to national thinking. He said it’s part of a concrete plan to message his goals and ideas ahead of election day, informed by his growing campaign team of around 30 people.
“Others in the country are thinking the same way I am,” he said. “People in this district need to know that I’m not alone.”
A “long-term fiscal plan” for Alaska is an objective he’s repeatedly described in recent years, and there are components of Project 2025, he said, that align with that goal.
Carpenter said he wants fixes to “the PFD problem,” pared back state spending and establishment of a “consistent and reliable” revenue source. It would take “all of those things,” he said, to achieve the stability he wants.
“Leaner, more responsive, more efficient government,” he said. “I think that’s what people want.”
Carpenter, in his campaign email, writes that “the left” is painting Project 2025 as a “dangerous” package that’s set to implement “a ‘takeover’ by Trump and his loyalists.”
Project 2025 is, per New York Times reporting, a set of conservative policy proposals for a future Republican administration compiled by the Heritage Foundation and other conservative groups.
Former President Donald Trump has distanced himself from the project, but NYT reporting says “Portions of the plan were driven by people who were top advisers to Mr. Trump during his first term and would most likely serve in prominent roles if he wins in November.”
Carpenter writes that he admires the proposals — “the work of over 400 conservative scholars and policy experts” — as they are compiled in the 900-page text “Mandate for Leadership 2025: The Conservative Promise.”
He says that the policies center around four goals. Those are to “restore the family as the centerpiece of American life;” “dismantle the administrative state and return self-governance to the American people;” “Defend our nation’s sovereignty, borders, and bounty against global threats;” and “Secure our God-given individual rights to live freely.”
Those four goals are spelled out in the book’s foreword.
To achieve those goals, the text of the foreword says that terms including sexual orientation and gender identity should be eliminated from federal regulation; pornography should be outlawed; “pro-life” policies should be pursued; government should be smaller and an “Administrative State” of non-appointed government employees dismantled; oil and natural gas should be considered not as “not an environmental problem” but “the lifeblood of economic growth;” and freedoms of religion and speech should be reaffirmed against “woke culture warriors.”
Per the NYT, the plan’s 900 pages detail “extreme” overhauls of the federal executive branch, including wholly disbanding the departments of commerce and education, removing protections for abortion and cutting back climate change response and monitoring.
The full text of the book is available on Project 2025’s website, which is linked in Carpenter’s email. It calls for reducing corporate taxes; increasing taxes for the lowest individual earners; reversing approval of abortion drug mifepristone; repeal of Medicare’s drug price negotiation program; and the elimination of the Department of Education.
Project 2025 calls for increased development of “Arctic Energy” in Alaska, as well as cutting regulations for oil and natural gas. It calls for breaking up the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration because it is “one of the main drivers of the climate change alarm industry and, as such, is harmful to future U.S. prosperity.”
On education, Project 2025 says “schools serve parents,” echoing “parental rights” language repeatedly espoused by Alaska Gov. Mike Dunleavy. A section titled “protect parental rights in policy” only describes creating legislation that would bar teachers from using a student’s chosen names or pronouns without parent permission, as well as barring schools from requiring their employees to use chosen pronouns “if contrary to the employee’s … religious or moral convictions.”
Also echoing Alaska headlines is advocacy for new school choice legislation that would allow parents to use public education funding to pay for private and religious schools. Earlier this year an Alaska Superior Court judge struck down the state’s correspondence school program as unconstitutional because some families were using the money for private religious schools. The Alaska Supreme Court reversed that decision earlier this year while also remanding the case to the lower courts for further proceedings.
Carpenter pointed to Alaska’s education conversations as one such area that can be directly connected to national ideas. He said that, nationwide, parents are “finding success” by getting more involved in their schools.
“We’re not alone,” he said. “There are other Americans that are pushing for common sense, conservative principles in order to govern at the state, local and federal level.”
The Alaska primary elections will be held Aug. 20, followed by the state and federal elections on Nov. 5. Rep. Ben Carpenter, Sen. Jesse Bjorkman, Andy Cizek and Tina Wegener are all running for the State Senate District D seat. More information can be found at elections.alaska.gov.
Reach reporter Jake Dye at jacob.dye@peninsulaclarion.com.
